Why I have a shitty law school career

17Jan

It’s because I don’t study. And when I do, I am so unused to studying, my brain retains nothing. It can remember things such as “Laughter, like love, is stronger than death” – an obscure line from The Cardinal Sins (a book which made me realize that not all catholic priests are diekholders), but it cannot remember Section whatever of the Companies Act, or Section some-other-number of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. I am not trying to hide behind my brain, believe me. I don’t have an actual mental problem. I am just supremely lazy when it comes to things that are not fun for me. It’s a shitty way to live for four years, and I don’t recommend it for anyone.

For what remains of law school, I will most likely have to give only one exam before I get out of here forever. And hopefully I will be able to take what seminar I like so that shouldn’t be a problem. In the meantime, I am sharing my average to above average knowledge of and immeasurable enthusiasm for literature with packs of second year students as a Teacher’s Assistant for a course called Law and Literature.

In some ways you could predict that this will end in naught but endless grief. Naught but grief! But the way I see it, I could either help a little or totally ruin some poor second year’s life via law and literature grades. And either way I’d be having fun so I’m cool with both likelihoods. Haha. Ha. Just kidding. I really don’t think I could ruin a life with Law and Literature. Hehe. Seriously though, I only want to help mold the mind of the next Chetan Bhagat.

Getting back on point, I also have shitty grade because I really don’t try. I didn’t like law school much as an institution a few months into it and I didn’t try, at least subconsciously. To be really honest, I didn’t like the institution form the moment I sat in a classroom where a senior was introducing us to the concept of mooting and the first words out of his mouth was – “If you want to be anyone of significance in NALSAR, you have to moot.”

Don’t get me wrong. I know that’s not true. I knew even back then that the guy was talking out of his colon. But I hated the institution and the people in it for thinking that this was the right guy to introduce first years to any extra curricular activity. I didn’t like NALSAR as much as I had thought I would. Except for friends, I actively disliked it and that combined with a requirement of hard work did not do me good. No sir. Again, this was entirely on me. I had high expectations and when they got blown to smithereens, instead of taking it like an amazon warrior I just retreated into TV, movies and the personal lives of other people.

The thing I most regret about this stage of my law school pussyfooting is that I stopped reading. The one thing that kept me sane through a good three years of hellish adolescence and I just left it. It was as though I decided that if I wasn’t going to be good at reading required readings, I wouldn’t be good at any reading. For anyone who knows me or has seen me in the past year or two, it would be hard to think of me without a book. That was me for the first three years in law school. The horror!

Another reason for the shitty grades was of course, that I am very lazy.

I also got shitty grades – and this is the only place where I will concede some responsibility to “the system” – is that I’m not good at memorizing dates, numbers, names, etc. So you can imagine the hellscape that remembering more than seventy sections was to me. Add to that case names and the importance given to remembering sections and dates, and it was like struggling with my seven times tables again. I don’t often admit it, but it took me at least two to three years to memorize multiplication tables up to ten. Up to five was only marginally easier. Once I had memorized the tables, math wasn’t as big a problem as it used to be.

Also, the laziness was a huge impairment to the getting of good grades.

Another mistake was going off acceptable standards on unhealthy lifestyles. I ate a lot more than I ever did and I wasted a lot of time being fat (heheheheheh. Whats-her-name lip biting woman from Dabangg can eat my poo and fucking die), and I hardly ever slept enough at night. I normally got to classes on time but I did spend quite some time either sleeping or using all of my energy to not sleep. the fact that whatever was being said/ taught in class was boring as dead babies only added to the sleepiness. I always say that if ever you have to live an unhealthy lifestyle, it might as well be in college. But I could also add that when it starts to make concentrating on anything substantial hard, its a wee bit too far.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that sloth is my middle name/

Then of course there was the really depressed stage of life which I have already talked about in the blog titled “Perspective…” – I forgot the rest of the title. I I have to write that shit again I will have to drink Sangria.

ME: And again, cue uncomfortable fake laughter…

I will add this much though. One of the saddest part of that whole situation was that I stopped talking to myself. I know most people consider talking to oneself as not very healthy, but let me assure you, if I didn’t talk to myself, I would go quite mad. If I didn’t talk to myself, all the things I imagine and all the weird thoughts popping into my head would have no release.

Of course, the lazy did as the lazy had to do too….

The I got better at dealing with myself. Nothing to take away from the damage done over the years, but I started writing and figuring out what to do. And people seem to like reading this crap especially when I talk about the nonsense of my life. So I may not live a life worth writing about but my depressingly comic take on myself sure may make it worth reading about.